PHILADELPHIA – Old Dominion men’s basketball played a close first half, but couldn’t overcome a slow start to the second as the Monarchs fell, 89-75 to Villanova on Tuesday night at Finneran Pavilion.
“There’s some things that I’m definitely proud of,” said ODU head coach Mike Jones. “If you look at the Miami game, if you look at the GW game and the Xavier game, there were those times where the tide went the other way and we didn’t respond. Tonight, we didn’t allow that to happen.”
The Monarchs (3-5) jumped out to a 6-0 start to the game as Scottie Hubbard scored a jumper, Caelum Swanton-Rodger converted a couple of free throws, and Jordan Battle followed with a layup.
Villanova’s Bryce Lindsay got the Wildcats (5-1) on the board with a deep ball and the hosts pulled ahead 10-8 at the 13:50 mark, but Battle countered with a triple of his own to put ODU back in front, 11-10.
Later in the half with Old Dominion trailing 20-16, Jared Turner connected from the left side of the arc to trim the Wildcat lead to a point. The two sides then went back and forth with three balls as Robert Davis Jr. and Scottie Hubbard hit their shots while Villanova’s Tyler Perkins and Acaden Lewis were also successful from the perimeter.
The ‘Cats got some separation, 31-25 off a Tafara Gapare layup and a three-pointer by Malachi Palmer, but Davis Jr. drilled another three before Ben Nacey found his way into the scoring column with a bucket down low. A Lewis three-pointer put the home team up 34-30, but Davis Jr. made his third triple of the night and Nacey went 1-for-2 at the line to even the score at 34-34 with 2:17 left. Davis Jr. would also get to the charity stripe and made both of his free throws for another tie at 36-36 before Villanova closed out the half with a 4-0 run.
The Monarchs couldn’t continue their play in the second half though as the Wildcats scored seven unanswered to go up by 11, 47-36 and force an early ODU timeout. Lewis would push the Villanova lead to 16, 55-39 with just over 16 minutes on the clock.
Still trailing by 16, 68-52 with 10:09 to play, ODU got some momentum going as LJ Thomas made a layup, Zacch Wiggins scored a jumper in the paint and hit a corner three, and Turner shot 1-for-2 at the line. That 8-0 run narrowed the gap to 68-60 at the 8:19 mark, but that was as close as the Monarchs would get as the Wildcats responded with a 7-0 run of their own.
Turner made a couple of late threes and Thomas added another deep ball, but Villanova held onto their double-digit lead as ODU ran out of time down the stretch.
“We’ve got to get better at keeping the ball in front of us. They made shots tonight that they haven’t been making. Acaden Lewis hadn’t shot the ball like that, Tyler Perkins hadn’t shot the ball like that.”
Battle shot 9-for-10 at the free-throw line and paced the Monarch offense with 19 points. Robert Davis Jr. knocked down 3-of-4 shots from distance to finish with 11 points, and Jared Turner scored 10 points on three deep balls before fouling out of the game. Drew McKenna also had a strong game with eight points and a team-high seven rebounds.
As a team, the Monarchs combined to shoot 45.3% (24-for-53) from the field, 47.8% (11-for-23) from long range, and 72.7% (16-for-22) at the free-throw line.
Asked about the start to the second half, Jones added, “That just wasn’t ODU basketball. We came out on our heels, and in a game and an environment like this, with the opportunity we had, we played them toe to toe in the first half and we’ve just got to come out better than that.”
“[Kevin Willard] is a great coach and they made adjustments at halftime. You’ve got to give them credit, but that just can’t happen.”
ODU scored more points off the bench, 28-22, but Villanova held the advantage in points off turnovers (15-7), points in the paint (36-24), and second-chance points (13-12). The Wildcats also edged the Monarchs on the glass, 34-29.
“The biggest thing for me is we’ve just got to get healthy so we can put our team on the floor for 40 minutes and not have to pick and choose what we do here, what we do there. So I’m looking forward to these couple of days off so that we can get closer to that. Then we can come back and see where we are.”
Up Next
ODU will be in Williamsburg this Sunday, Nov. 30 for a 2 p.m. meeting with William & Mary.